Although the Homestead Act of 1862 was enacted after the Civil War (1861 to 1865) started, the debate that addresses was significant to the onset of war.
Before the Civil War, other land-grant laws proposed by northern Republicans, similar to the Homestead Act of 1862, had been blocked in Congress by southern Democrats who desired western lands open for acquisition by slave-owners.
They were extremely dirty. There was excrement on the streets, pigs and rats roamed free, and people were hired to clean said streets due to how bad the smell was.
